By N Sathiya Moorthy*

Unacknowledged mostly by the Indian media, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj undertook a two-day weekend visit to Maldives, setting the stage for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to follow suit, but possibly based on the quick-changing domestic developments in the Indian Ocean archipelago. Accompanied by Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar, she met President Abdulla Yameen apart from counterpart Dunya Maumoon, after the former had to make do with a detailed discussion on bilateral issues and concerns with the new Maldivian Vice-President, Ahmed Adeeb, during his August visit.

“India first,” was how President Yameen described Maldives’ foreign policy to EAM Sushma, according to an Indian High Commission statement later. The visitor, according to local media reports, reiterated India’s “Neighbours first” foreign policy, which has suffered a few setbacks in recent times, both as stand-alone bilateral affairs and in India’s prioritisation of issues, concerns and overseas visits by the nation’s high dignitaries.

“Discussions with the President of Maldives were reflective of the privileged relationship between India and Maldives,” the Indian statement said. Together, the current declarations should thus help reverse the trend in India-Maldives relations, particularly if the former makes a conscious and continuing effort to keep the neighbourhood a priority in its overall scheme.

Keeping China out?

During their talks, President Yameen reiterated the declared Maldivian position against extra-regional players in the shared Indian Ocean neighbourhood. To India, it meant keeping China out, not necessarily from trade and economic relations, but on the strategic security front. From a Maldives’ stand-point, it could have also implied keeping the US out, as well – an issue for America’s declared Indian friend in the neighbourhood to ponder. Otherwise, India may not be averse to the possibilities of Chinese investments in Maldives as elsewhere across the world in general and the immediate neighbourhood in particular – but with the rider that there are ‘no free lunches’ in international diplomacy and strategic contexts.

India is at present building a Composite Training Centre for the Maldives National Defence Forces (MNDF), the Maldivian armed forces, and is engaged in joint patrolling and training programmes for MNDF officers, joint military exercises and medical camps. Army personnel from the two nations held their bi-annual exercises near the south Indian city of Thiruvananthapuram recently. The better-known ‘Dosti’ series of bi-annual naval exercises, also including common neighbour Sri Lanka since the last time round, is due to be held of the Goa coast in late October.

Truth be acknowledged, EAM Sushma’s visit was quickly followed by Vice-President Adeeb leaving for Beijing, to launch a Maldivian investors forum meeting, after the relatively successful one in Singapore in 2014. EAM Sushma’s visit has led to a mutual commitment on holding a similar investors’ forum in India, too. As may be recalled, President Mohammed Nasheed, during a visit to India while in office (2008-12) had met Indian investors at Mumbai outside of the fledgling GMR contract, and the results were mixed, thus.

Terrorism threat

Coinciding with Minister Sushma’s visit was the Ankara bombing in distant Turkey, President Yameen’s statement condemning the attack and promising to work with the international community against religious terrorism should have also addressed Indian concerns, one more time. Hawks in India, both viz religious terrorism and Maldives, have for some time now, harped on the possibilities of anti-India terror-attacks, both of the Pakistani ISI and international ISIS types, based out of the Indian Ocean archipelago. As individual episodes of the past year have proved, more Maldivians are enrolling into ISIS per capita than from many other nations, including the West and the rest — and are also fighting and dying in Syria. While the Yameen Government has been discouraging youth from the country from fighting ‘un-Islamic wars’ of others in third nations, there also seems to be concern about the terrorists looking inwards and training their ‘guns’ on Maldives.

The recent social-media threats against President Yameen and other Government leaders should be a case in point – pending the conclusion of the internationally-assisted probe into the blast in his official launch when he was aboard, along with the First Lady. India, along with Sri Lanka, Australia, Saudi Arabia and the US had sent forensic experts to help out the Maldivian police, and the initial Sri Lankan media reports, citing official sources, has confirmed a planned attack on President Yameen.

Economic cooperation

EAM Sushma also used the occasion to co-chair a meeting of the Joint Commission on Economic and Technical Cooperation – the first in 15 years and only the sixth since the forum was launched as far back as 1986. The meeting concluded or discussed MoUs on improved cooperation not only on the trade front, but also on health, education and labour fronts, among others.

Thus, the Foreign Institutes of the two countries would increase their cooperation in improving training for prospective Maldivian diplomats, who join the services at a relatively younger age than counterparts in most countries, including the South Asian neighbours. On the all-important health sector, where low population and long distances make for huge gaps in a modern health delivery system in the archipelago-nation, India promised to increase the number of hospitals covered by the Maldivian Government-sponsored ‘Aasandha’ health insurance scheme for their citizens.

“The experience of Indian companies in Maldives was reviewed,” the Indian statement said, without giving any specifics. The reference of course is to the Indian infrastructure-major, GMR, which has had a bad experience over the construction-cum-concession contract for upgrading the Ibrahim Nasir International Airport at capital Male. Caught in a political hailstorm in its time, the GMR, President Yameen said after assuming office had not done proper ‘due-diligence’.

Independent of GMR type of large-industry controversies, in which Tata Housing too was involved for a time, there have also been issues pertaining to banking and credit-recovery laws in Maldives, which too has proved to be a dampener for Indian investors. India is pledged to help Maldives modernise banking laws, where greater movement needs to be witnessed. India is also the only country, near or far, which has experience and expertise in marrying modern, ‘common law’ practices with ‘personal’ (read: religious) laws like the Islamic Shariat, even in criminal and other civil matters.

‘Internal affair’

One the post-GMR recent controversy over the Maldivian arrest and court-ordered conviction and 13-year-long imprisonment of former President Mohammed Nasheed, President Yameen reportedly reiterated the known position of his Government. Against mounting international pressure, including the more recent ruling of a UN Working Group that Nasheed’s imprisonment amounted to ‘arbitrary detention’, President Yameen reportedly indicated that the international community should give a fair chance/trial to his nation’s existing schemes and systems, including the Judiciary.

The reference, if so, was obviously to his Government’s appealing Nasheed’s trial court ruling, first in the High Court and now in the nation’s High Court, after the prosecution had originally converted a criminal case into a ‘terrorism case’ with a minimum 10 years in prison. The Yameen Government, if at all, is yielding to what it considers is the partisan international pressure, only in fits and starts. Having taken a high ground in the case, based on issues of ‘sovereignty’, it would find it difficult to climb down as fast as the West in particular would want, notwithstanding the legality of the Government’s arguments in the domestic context and without reference to the UN-mandated institutional rulings.

On a matter of principle, there is no difference between the known Indian position and frequently-reiterated Maldivian stand in the matter. Barring a solitary reference to the way the police pushed and pulled Nasheed around while producing him before the court on one occasion India has refrained from commenting publicly on the matter. It’s again a considered Indian position on internal matters of neighbourhood nations, at times including adversarial Pakistan.

However, Indian concerns about the Nasheed imprisonment, including those pertaining to the continued stability of Maldives and the inherent incapacity of any Government in Male to divide and diversify political and security resources to multiple tasks, including possible IS-type threats, remain. As the world’s largest democracy, India’s concerns also pertain to that score, though unlike most other democracy, it has not been selective in applying the ‘rule of law’, nor is it too enthusiastic about going along with the West on selective application and constant ‘upgradation’ of the same – or, so it seems.

In context, on an earlier occasion when Nasheed faced imminent arrest in the ‘Judge Abdulla case’ in 2013, and took unilateral refuge in the Indian High Commission premises, Indian diplomacy was believed to have worked overtime to have the care hearing indefinitely put off, if only to give him and his Maldivian Democratic Party, a ‘level-playing field’ in the 2013 presidential poll. It was again in the context of the MDP’s proven membership viz the figures for the rest of them, including Yameen’s Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM), put together.

It is thus unclear as yet, why the Nasheed camp and the MDP second-line chose to count more on a global display of western diplomacy against the quiet and sustained Indian way of achieving results – or, laid greater stress on their own pre-power ways of street-displays, not stopping with public protests and defying the laws. While in Male, EAM Sushma met MDP’s parliamentary group leader, Ibrahim ‘Ibu’ Solih. After her departure, MDP’s international spokesperson Hamid Abdul Ghafoor, in a statement, welcomed President Yameen’s “India First” observations, though with caveats.

More points of contact

By most, if not all indicators, the Sushma visit has been successful, setting the stage for a possible early prime ministerial visit from India. On that score, too, Maldives seems to have held its ground. Ahead of the Maldivian Independence Golden Jubilee, authorities in Male held that PM Modi already had a pending invitation to visit the country, and no new invitation needed to be extended on the occasion, if he decided to participate.

The reference obviously was to the last-minute cancellation of the Maldives leg of the first-ever four-nation Indian Ocean neighbourhood visit by any Indian leader, in March. The multi-point Indian predicament in the matter did not seem to have been lost on his Maldivian hosts at the time, following the un-seeming – and possibly unexplained – haste in proceeding with the Nasheed trial at the time.

As it turned out, the trial court judgment came almost at the same hour as PM Modi landed in Colombo, the capital of neighbouring Sri Lanka. It was a Friday, a public holiday in the Islamic nation – and closer to midnight, the proverbial unholy hour for a court verdict to be delivered in as sensational and serious case of the kind. It’s anybody’s guess if the Maldivian authorities would have continued with the same pace if PM Modi were to land in Male, instead, that night or around the period.

Now, the Nasheed case, the trial and the MDP’s global political initiative are all past the prime of the Ides of March, particularly for bilateral relations from an Indian angle. Yet, there is a realisation that if someone could do something productive in Nasheed’s case, it could only be India. And there is a continuing acceptance in Indian official circles – as different from the strategic community – that if anything could succeed, it’s only the Indian way of quiet diplomacy, and not any display of power and protests.

Yet, questions about the timing of a prime ministerial visit from India may remain. Almost immediately after EAM Sushma’s visit, President Yameen sacked his Defence Minister, a former chief of the Maldivian National Defence Forces (MNDF), Moosa Ali Jaleel, the second such dismissal this calendar year, over the recent blast on presidential boat when the incumbent was onboard. The investigations are still on, and some arrests have also been made. Under the circumstances, India, it would naturally seem, would prefer a cooling-off period before planning a major VVIP visit, even from the political and diplomatic angles, in terms of what such a visit could achieve, apart from natural security concerns. In context, Maldivian authorities might have possibly come to grips with the rationale behind PM Modi postponing – and not cancelling – his March visit.

Even otherwise, the communication-gap between the two nations, which has nothing to do with coalescing positions, seems to have since been bridged, after an exchange of Foreign Secretary visits in August, and the more recent Sushma-Dunya meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. While bilateral trade relations and economic cooperation have grown even without a Joint Commission meeting for long, the decision to meet next year in Delhi should be an expression of desire for identifying more points of contacts between the political leaderships of the two nations, outside of the UN General Assembly and SAARC discussions.

What thus remains is a revival of talks on dates and agenda for an early visit by Prime Minister Modi to Maldives, after President Yameen had made his first official overseas visit to Delhi in January 2014, followed by one in end-May last year, for the former’s Inauguration. It could hold greater promises not only for bilateral relations and regional stability, but even for the future course of Maldivian domestic politics and personality, but without external say-so.

*The writer is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter

When the US doesn’t know what else to do but politics seems to require some form of action, the US defaults to its military and intelligence capabilities.  This is really not a substitute for actual policy and without fitting into a comprehensive, sustained strategic framework usually makes things worse.

By Gerard M. Gallucci*

The Middle East from Libya through Afghanistan is in crisis with much of it in full chaos.  Instability generates worsening regional dynamics threatening wider war as well as a refugee flow on the verge of undoing a united Europe.  Russian President Putin recently placed the blame for much of this on the United States and he has a point (although Russia’s own intervention in Syria is unlikely by itself to achieve any positive result).  Since the end of the Cold War, America – and therefore the West in general – has been adrift without any overall strategy for helping to maintain world peace and achieve greater and more equitable prosperity.  As the West benefits most from the current world order, this strategic vacuum threatens its own security and continued prosperity.

The Cold War gave purpose to US national security policy, made it simple.  Whatever the Soviets were doing, the US had to be there doing the opposite.  This “strategy” governed US foreign policy from Latin America, through Europe, Africa and the Middle East and into Southwest and Southeast Asia.  After the Cold War ended, American policy drifted rudderless until regional crises of ethnic conflict pushed it into dealing episodically with peacemaking (limited interventions), peacekeeping (mostly through passing the job to the UN) and reaffirmed support (mostly verbal and selective) for democracy and human rights.

Meanwhile, the US continued to maintain – at great expense – the world’s largest and most technically advanced military.  This was domestically popular and generated jobs.  It also generated political support for all those politicians who championed a “strong military.”  Despite apparent intelligence community failures, including 9/11 and false Iraq WMD estimates, its budget – mostly contained in that of the Department of Defense – tops up over $600 billion per year.  For various reasons, there was little corresponding support for a robust foreign policy and the political class did not bestow the same resources on its foreign affairs mechanisms.

With 9/11, Washington was handed another simplifying “strategy” to guide its national security policy, the “global fight against terrorism.”  The US would track down terrorists wherever they were and take down the regimes that provided them support.  This led to armed interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq (though the intelligence linking Saddam to Al-Qaeda was false) and eventually Libya.  Syria had long been an on-again, off-again partner of the US.  But the “human rights” strain of American policy – led astray by notions of a supposed “Arab Spring” – led Wahington to encourage opponents of Assad the Younger into armed revolt.  The same caused the US to abandon longtime Egyptian ally Hosni Mubarak only to see his eventual replacement with a more brutal version.  The net effect was the regional chaos (and refugee flows) that Putin was talking about.

Washington has rarely used diplomacy to deal with its perceived security challenges.  The recent successful negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program is a welcome exception.  President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry are to be congratulated for seeing the wisdom in working with allies and Russia and keeping at it until reaching an agreement.  Obama took a political risk in this because of the strong resistance in much of the American political class to accepting diplomatic outcomes when military options seem more direct.  But in part, the opposition to the Iran deal resulted from Obama’s own failure to articulate a clear guiding strategy for US foreign policy beyond that of avoiding “stupid” wars.  Avoiding stupid wars is a good idea.  But without a political and strategic vision for going beyond that to deal more comprehensively with the many challenges of the 21st Century, America falls back to its default setting relying on a panoply of military and intelligence approaches.

This default setting includes direct military intervention on the ground (Afghanistan and Iraq), bombing from the air (Serbia, Libya and now Syria), drones and paramilitary operations (various places), overt and covert support (equipment and training to proxy actors) and massive electronic spying on everyone.  When the US doesn’t know what else to do but politics seems to require some form of action, the US defaults to its military and intelligence capabilities.  This is really not a substitute for actual policy and without fitting into a comprehensive, sustained strategic framework usually makes things worse.  In Syria right now, the US seems clueless.  Russia – at whatever future cost it will have to pay – has reportedly blunted advances recently made by rebels receiving support through the CIA.  There clearly must be a political and diplomatic approach to resolving the Syria crisis that will somehow include Assad and perhaps even the Caliphate (or at least the former Baathists within it).

The range of ways for dealing with the Other goes from seeking to understand him to trying to kill him.  America’s default setting consists of the cluster of approaches at the killing end of the spectrum.  Diplomacy begins with trying to understand the Other and then finding ways to influence his perceptions, interests and behavior and perhaps gain mutually acceptable arrangements.  America needs to make up its mind about what kind of world it wishes to live in and how it can best get there.  This will require thinking hard about what the rest of the world wants and how we can all work it out together with the least amount of conflict and lingering resentments.

*Gerard M. Gallucci is a retired US diplomat and UN peacekeeper. He worked as part of US efforts to resolve the conflicts in Angola, South Africa and Sudan and as Director for Inter-American Affairs at the National Security Council. He served as UN Regional Representative in Mitrovica, Kosovo from July 2005 until October 2008 and as Chief of Staff for the UN mission in East Timor from November 2008 until June 2010. He now works as an independent consultant and as adjunct professor for national security policy at the Daniel Morgan Academy in Washington, DC.

Doubtless, everyone has right to travel, since good travelling provides the recreation necessity of people, recently its being a phenomenon isn’t surprising. Tourism causing economy growth, inspiring people to demonstrate favorable actions with all its positive aspects have become most active standard of life of billions of people.

Tourism is the luxury of our time and everyone has full right to benefit by this luxury. Regarding this we have full confidence that, maybe not today, but any elementary contribution to tourism in the world, sure will be a very valuable present for the future generation. Gaining health care of travelers along with outlook increase, enrichment of tolerant feelings are said to be the wish of individuals and also governments organizing the travelling of the people with the modest income and inclusively important travelling together with a social tourism promotion is the shortest way to achieve own goals.

Tourism and social responsibility

What is a social tourism? But why to approach to the social tourism through the window of social responsibility? To answer this question is possible via several arguments. Nowadays the mentioned social tourism is the best means against social exclusion in the world [1]. One of the vital principles of sustainable development of society is not differing people due to their incomes. At the present moment everyone easily witnesses different strikes arisen from various crises in the world by low paid people either openly or hidden. In accordance with this different projects of various purposes focused to discharge the accumulated negative energy in society was easily seen in the fifties when Europe perfomed the importance of social tourism [2].

The main differentiating feature of this broadly spread tourism in the Western and Eastern Europe is the source of its financing. Through this tourism category state undertakes an obligation in front of its citizens and provides their travelling rights [3]. Today along with commercial travellings social tours possess important segments as well. Nevertheless the date of bias social tours starts from the second half of the XIX century, but later on, especially, after World War II the spread and populism of this tourism could prevail among people and thus for making it “tourism for all” afterwards it was called as social tourism. As a result it became the best model in providing the social travelling necessity of the low paid people (in our sample medical tourism) and turned criterion of life quality [4].

It is advisable to note that even this type of travelling in Soviet time covered some categories of low paid people such as: pensioners, jobless persons, students, agricultural collective farm workers etc. who from time to time were engaged to the tour of social importance. At that time there were tours of treatment, greetings, ecotourism importance which subjected to different ages who had performed good results in labor activity or education in parallel.

All these occurred in the time when comfortable commercial tours didn’t widely cover the former USSR and even its propaganda wasn’t suitable. There was a time that hard working people in the plants, factories, collective farms, schools were sent to Crimea (Artek) of Ukraine which has been annexed by Russia, the regions of Kalbajar and Garabagh currently under occupation of Armenia, either completely unpaid or partially paid to provide their rest-recreation to some extend in 1970-1980 years. We have to confess that modern tourism, especially social tourism, is the product of stability and economic development. So that its development is linked to social and economic development of nations and can only be possible if a man has access to creative rest and holidays and enjoys freedom to travel within the framework of free and leisure time whose profoundly human character is underlined. Its existence and development entirely depends on the existence of a state of lasting peace, to which tourism is required to contribute [5]. Doubtless, the more economy develops, financial opportunities are extending the more social tourism payments will be easier and possible respectively. Sure, for this purpose, there are different sources.

In developed countries there are four types of financial sources of investment in social tourism; grant credit state, the National House of family allowances (NCC) or locally from the House Family Allowance (CAF), or funds from to individuals or loans of financial organizations [6]. But from different firms or funds in developed countries for now to expect such initiatives is very seldom and it causes to seek alternative ways; because people are interested to ensure their personal health. Through traveling and for this purpose they are ready to profit by any chance given to them. The physiological, social, economic and environmental impacts of tourism are so powerful that the right to travel and tourism have been incorporated in key international documents including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966, the World Tourism Organization’s Manila Declaration on World Tourism of 1980, Bill of Rights and Tourist Code of 1985 and the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism of 1999. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has two passages that underpin the right to travel: articles 13 (2) and 24. Article 13 (2) states ‘‘everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country’’ [7].

It is known that the organizing of social tourism is much more compared with a factor of social responsibility of economic factors. No secret that our present time is better known as the culture being shared among people more than ever and in this context sharing of tourism possibilities with the world, especially making people understand that natural recourses of treatment are of important concern to all mankind throughout the world, it should be understood as the highest culture that could exist today. To understand it and to take solid measures in this direction is the example of the greatest and deepest social responsibility. To take concrete measures after understanding the above touched responsibility belongs to the World Tourism Organization, Global Code of Ethics for Tourism as has been stated in the article 7 of the right to tourism: “social tourism, and in particular associative tourism, which facilitates widespread access to leisure, travel and holidays, should be developed with the support of the public authorities” and also to create suitable atmosphere for family, youth, students, adults and physically disabled people participating in mass tourism in order to isolate anyone for economic condition is beyond humanist principles.

Methodology

Currently among potential tourists there are a large number of segments interested in social tours offered to make use of treatment-recreation resources. It is possible to arrive at this kind of idea without differing countries and continents that the Earth planet is rich with all kinds of natural resources said to be useful for human health. Very likely, the level of their usage impacts to the number of tourist and destination choice definitely. In other word, besides social responsibility understanding, starting from the difficulties created by natural condition and its solution till the simplest management questions, everything should be settled in a complex form, nothing else more.

But if the nature has gifted various resources for human health and there is a stable economic growth in a country, then any issue solution should be approached in an optimist way. On the ground of natural resources in Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic (Azerbaijan) the development of social tourism may be overviewed in two stages. First, it is a very interesting fact that this region situated on the Southern slopes of the Lesser Caucasus with a territory 5.5 thousand km2 possesses a great deal of resources of treatment and healing importance. There are more than 250 mineral water sources majority of which are of treatment importance and are very famous among regional countries. But second, Duzdag Physiotherapy Center is much more attractive for its property of Speleoteraphy importance. So that, speleoteraphy (in Greek “speleo” means “cave”) is a rear method of treatment used in the cave condition [8]. The purpose of this investigation is to learn the medical tourism in the region by using medical features of Duzdag and to study the ways of social tourism extension on the ground of this. Having social tourism experience of Nakhchivan in the past and also medical tourism resources richness in this area, new necessary information was gathered on the basis of new development and marketing prism. As a result of this every year more than 400 thousand tourists from the other regions of Azerbaijan and foreign countries come to Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. Medical tourism, their principles of sustainability, the possibility of its promotion by state initiative has been learned from different sources. The analysis of experience of the countries was carried out, social load of the first investigations in this field was considered and different data were accumulated for this. Social tourism isn’t only the social responsibility of a state, but also the possible contributions by private sectors were considered through the domestic means of a developing country. Also the factors could impact to the cave treatment positively or negatively was considered, the impression of the tourists have taken treatment here were well trained doctors’ observations were generalized. SWOT analysis of social tourism organizing and management within local demands frame was carried out.

It was considered vital because furthermore planning of Duzdag strong laterals to develop more than and weak points correction to be restored due to the landmark offers.

The priorities of the investigation were as follows:

– Learning the travelling requirements of people, especially certain group of sensitive people;
– Learning the efficiency of state initiative for social tourism;
– Learning the possibilities of branding of Duzdag as a tourism destination;
– Overview its long-term opportunities in the future.

Duzdag. Speleotherapy

The word “Duzdag” consists of two components. The first component “Duz” has the meaning of “Salt”, but the second component “Dag” means “Rock”. The area is situated at 11 km. distance from the city of Nakhchivan with about 100 thousand people to the North-West.

There are huge NaCl salt deposits to have been naturally formed million years before. The mentioned salt with some hundred of million tons of capacity has been extracting for more than two thousand years. Considering this, Duzdag is of value to see, to walk and to admire. Nakhchivan being on the historical Silk Way crossroad this salt was extracted to be used in daily life and agricultural as well. According to the historians this very rock salt was carried to thousands of kilometers distance from here by camel caravans [9]. There are various interesting stories among local people connected with salt, its treatment (healing) magic. In its part this rock salt had a great role in forming a town building culture of 5 thousand years ago. All this has been proved and approved by international archeological expedition finds in this area during excavation and above all the discovered material-cultural samples could justify all hopes around this issue [10].

Starting from the fifties of the XX century the salt began to be produced in a wide scale form by industrial way to provide the chemical industry with raw materials and as a result of what such huge caves appeared in the hundred meters in depth where a large number of people could shelter at once. Thereafter spelo-therapy invention, namely, the method of asthmatic diseases treatment in salt mines Duzdag became famous for its treatment importance [11].

Salt and recreation

Already more than 50 years asthmatic diseases have been treating by spelotherapy methods in Duzdag. Generally there are so many facts related to the medical importance of salt. One knows that there are a lot of countries in the world as America, Europe, some countries not far from Azerbaijan as Romany, Poland, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and others where there are places of mine methods of treatment. But despite the former USSR period, the organizations of treatment opportunities in Duzdag have completely changed from good to the better [12].

The carried observations and learned the past practice prove that majority of the patients visiting here are either from the coastal countries or from the high humidity climate regions. Sure, there are also people in Azerbaijan living in coastal regions and high humidity climate areas suffering from asthmatic diseases. Though among them there are people needn’t any extra social concession and they easily can make a reservation in a five star modern hotel near Duzdag cave that has the same name, they can pass the night in the rooms considered for VIP clients in the cave, respectively. But not everyone visiting here, especially children have material opportunities.

Therefore all kinds of treatment courses due to the ages (12-18 days) and medical service, to spend the nights in the cave and other expenses are unpaid for the citizens of the Republic of Azerbaijan. And starting from 2012 this kind of service is subjected to the underage and middle aged children (about one hundred) from the developing country Georgia regularly and this unpaid medical course is a good example from social tourism management point of view not only for internal tourism but also international tourism indeed. In the best meaning of a word such a social responsibility example for the region of a developing country maybe submitted as a successful pilot project for the authority of a state.
Thus, despite social conviction of the citizens visiting here or their being state employers or private sector workers the considered treatment is the same for all. We have full confidence that considering the source of income determining the social status of people ensures the efficiency of treatment and also recreation. When meeting the patients in the cave of Duzdag, having talk with them one can easily feel their happiness and satisfaction. It means that there is nothing better than restored health in the world.

References:
[1]
Lynn Minnaert, Robert Maitland, Graham Miller. Tourism and social policy: the value of social tourism. Available at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01607383.
[2]
Hunziker W., (1958.), Comments on the finance and investments in social tourism. Tourism Progress, Nr.1.
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Khalilova, H. Yusufov, Z. and Akhundova. E.,. 2008. Türkiye ve Azerbaycan Tuz Mağaraları ve Sağlık. Uluslararası Katılımlı Tıbbi Jeoloji Sempozyumu Kitabı: 125-128, Ankara.
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Salikhov M.S., Yusifov Z.B.. “The role of speleotherapy in the treatment of bronchial asthma”. The scientific conference devoted to the 75 anniversary of prof. Zeynalova Z.A., Baku, 2008. p.56-58.
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Ali Jabbarov. Gifts of nature: medical tourism in Azerbaijan. Experience and perspectives. Available at http://fototraveller.ru/articles/dari-prirodi-lechebnii-tyrizm-v-azerbaidjane-opit-i-perspektivi.html.

NOTE:
Cite this paper: Ali Jabbarov, Zulfugar Zulfugarov, Social Tourism in Duzdag, Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic within the Republic of Azerbaijan: Resources, Planning and Development, American Journal of Tourism Management, Vol. 4 No. 1, 2015, pp. 1-6. doi: 10.5923/j.tourism.20150401.01.

Universal jurisdiction is one of those legal beasts that frightens as much as it excites. The debate about such jurisdiction, which enables prosecutors from one state to effectively prosecute war crimes or crimes against humanity committed in another state is a highly contentious one.

The International Criminal Court is meant to provide a platform that has looked, largely because of circumstance and procedure, all too much like a body with an African bias. Regarding the Syrian conflict, there have been calls to bring its operations within the purview of ICC jurisdiction, one made difficult by Syria being a non-signatory to the Rome Statute. On May 19, 2014, 58 countries issued a statement and letter calling on the UN Security Council to adopt a French sponsored resolution doing just that.

The move was welcomed by Human Rights Watch, including its international justice counsel Balkees Jarrah. “The movement for justice for victims in Syria is gaining unprecedented momentum. By officially co-sponsoring the resolution for an ICC referral, countries will be taking a critically important stand for accountability for serious crimes by all sides.”¹ Wheels, however, tend to turn slowly in the UN.

Retaining the colouring of an equally balanced prosecution, with an effort to evenly account for crimes created by all sides, is where such efforts tend to break down. But the ICC, in that sense, still retains some link to an internationalised procedure that can account for atrocities. Critics of the various sides in the conflict will, however, be impatient, and France, having taken the lead to bring the ICC into play, is charging out with its own suggestions.

Needless to say, these efforts haven proven to be more selective. To that end, it is hard to envisage a situation of objectively contrived justice for Assad’s “victims” and his prosecution without also placing French objectives for the region into perspective. The Hollande government wishes Assad out; its prosecutors wish to see him in the dock. Syria’s victims provide the handy, if cynically manipulated alibis, to justify the action.

On September 30, the prosecutor’s office in Paris announced that it will be opening an investigation into torture carried out by the Assad regime. It does not even purport to target other sides in the conflict, including Islamic State. In a conflict of competing cruelties, even this action seems calculating.

French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, made it clear who he had in his legal sights. “Faced with these crimes that offend the human conscience, this bureaucracy of horror, faced with this denial of values of humanity, it is our responsibility to act against the impunity of the killers.” The move was billed as “the world’s first criminal inquiry into torture under President Bashar al-Assad of Syria”.²

This enterprise is already filled with a range of calculations, much of them based upon the assumption that this legal case will rile Assad and form the basis of negotiations for a future “settlement” of the conflict. For one, it involves the French foreign ministry, ever that intrusive figure of imperial valour in the Middle East, pushing upon prosecutors a dossier stacked with pictures of torture victims.

The pictures first made their appearance on CNN in January last year, suggesting that eleven thousand individuals had been systematically murdered in the Syrian prison system, mostly through a gruesome regime of torture. The graphic imagery had been the work of a photographer for the military police code-named Caesar, one tasked with taking pictures of bodies brought from prison detention.³ In escaping Syria, his stash of images numbered some 55 thousand. Denials about their authenticity followed.

Even legal outlets keeping an eye on the proceedings conceded that the moves had a stark political flavour. Russia’s efforts to “rehabilitate” Assad had to be countered by such measures, even if they needed Paris to identify a French victim or arrest a Syrian official.⁴

Such zealous efforts are not necessarily going to ring sweetly in the corridors of power in the US and Israel. Both sides have made their opposition to universal jurisdiction, or at least instances of its use, before. Political expedience is cited as a prevailing poison in such affairs.

One of its strongest critics remains a figure who himself would look fitting in a criminal court – former US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. “The danger lies [in submitting international politics to judicial procedures] in pushing the effort to extremes that risk substituting the tyranny of judges for that of governments; historically the dictatorship of the virtuous has often led to inquisitions and even witch-hunts” (Foreign Affairs, Jul/Aug 2011).

One country that has shown a particular interest in universal jurisdiction is Spain. On October 31, 2010, Spanish Judge Ferdinand Andreu refused to grant former Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter immunity from prosecution for a trip to Spain where he was intent on participating in a peace summit.⁵

Dichter was facing charges for war crimes and crimes against humanity for his involvement in the assassination of former senior Hamas member Salah Shedade. The operation, supervised by Dichter, saw the deployment of a one-ton bomb in Al-Daraj, a residential neighbourhood in Gaza that killed fourteen civilians, including eight children, and injured 150 others.

While it is tempting to see international law as a manifestation of higher workings, wise judges and legal briefings without political manipulation, the view is but an illusion. The French effort here to forge a prosecution through domestic mechanisms looks more political than substantial, even if there has been, over the last 25 years, an understanding that “enemies of the human race” – hostes humani generis – need to face some judicial procedure. But international law, for all its contentions, remains a product of the law of nations and national interest. Human rights protocols remain weapons used by governments against others.

While there is much to merit investigations and prosecutions of a range of horrendous crimes committed against civilians in Syria by a complex range of sides and powers, the specificity of these claims against Assad for torture, tend to dispel notions of a virtuous tyranny in action.

This is a warring environment that permits barrel bombs, chemical weapons, beheadings and torture. It is a hothouse of cruelties, and pulling the rabbit out of the hat specifically for Assad’s criminality, in the absence of considering those he is battling against, will be a tall order. The only truly appropriate forum, should it ever come, will have to be a Syrian court, but do not expect that to be particularly balanced, either by local or international design, either.

Notes

A suspect charged with providing material support to ISIS and computer hacking related to the theft and distribution of U.S. military and federal employee personal information adds to questions about Hillary Clinton’s personal server’s vulnerability.

U.S. authorities have arrested a Malaysia-based hacker who allegedly gathered personal information of U.S. military members to pass on to a prominent Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) propagandist, according to the U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday.

Law enforcement officials are holding suspect Ardit Ferizi, a Muslim from Kosovo, in a Malaysia detention facility based on an outstanding U.S. arrest warrant alleging that he provided material support to ISIS, which is a State Department-designated foreign terrorist organization. He allegedly committed computer hacking and identity theft violations in conjunction with the theft and release of personally identifiable information about members of the U.S. military as well as federal government employees.

ls in the heads of anyone involved in national security, counterterrorism, or law enforcement. If these members of Obama’s ‘JV Team’ are able to penetrate computers systems used by the military and the government, how easy would it have been to breach Hillary Clinton’s personal server on which she conducted national security business?” asked former police cyber security expert Gregory Nash, who now specializes in computer “target hardening.”

According to the criminal complaint which was unsealed on Thursday, U.S. law enforcement officials and prosecutors are seeking Ferizi’s extradition to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia so he can stand trial.

The data on U.S. military members, including their home addresses and photos, was scraped from websites and passed on to Junaid Hussein, a notorious British hacker who was actively involved in recruiting westerners to join ISIS and travel to the Middle East for training and deployment, according to Justice Department officials.

The Pentagon had announced in August 2015 that the U.S. had killed Hussein during an airstrike in Syria. The British jihadist allegedly served as a ranking member of ISIS’s so-called Cyber Caliphate which allegedly carried out hacking operations on military and government websites belonging to the U.S., France, Britain and other western countries.

Malaysian authorities have already agreed to extradite the hacker Ardit Ferizi, to the U.S. where he will be charged with cybercrime and terrorism offenses.

“As alleged, Ardit Ferizi is a terrorist hacker who provided material support to ISIS by stealing the personally identifiable information of U.S. service members and federal employees and providing it to ISIS for use against those employees,” said Assistant Attorney General John Carlin in Washington, D.C. “This case is a first of its kind and, with these charges, we seek to hold Ferizi accountable for his theft of this information and his role in ISIS’s targeting of U.S. government employees,” Carlin added.

“The Justice Department and Assistant Attorney General Carlin should be commended for their investigation and arrest of a dangerous security threat in this cyber terrorism case. Now if only they would give the case involving Hillary Clinton and her breach of security in using an unprotected Internet server to store classified emails,” Gregory Nash said.

Coinciding with the important, and highly fluid, military developments inside Syria, the diplomatic and political efforts to end the bloody conflict continue and include an important gathering in Tehran on October 17th, co-hosted by a Tehran think tank affiliated with the foreign ministry and the Munich Security Conference (MSC). Considered an important forum for discussion of global security issues, MSC’s Tehran gathering features some 60 representatives including the German, Iraqi, nad Afghan foreign ministers, UN representatives, European lawmakers and officials, as well as governmental representatives from various Arab states.

According to a press release, the MSC Chairman Wolfgang Ischinger has stated that “in light of the recent agreement on the nuclear dispute, now is precisely the time to find out whether and how Iran and the West can cooperate more closely on other issues as well. We need to discuss possible joint approaches to dealing with the various regional crises, particularly in Syria, with Iranian decision-makers as well.”

Clearly, reaching out to Iran on Syria and other regional crises is a prudent step by the West, given Iran’s regional clout and geostrategic position, particularly by the refugee-hit Europeans who can no longer afford to de-prioritize the Syrian crisis. Compared to the US, the European reaction to the Russian military action in Syria has been more nuanced, given Moscow’s own diplomatic effort to portray it as a “common good” against the scourge of terrorism, thus prompting calls, e.g., by the German foreign ministerSteinmeir for a new diplomatic initiative based on an extensive international contact group for Syria in order to reach a political solution in Syria.

But, while the Europeans are eager to telescope the recent nuclear agreement to broader non-nuclear issues such as regional security, the US has been sending contradictory signals, particularly since the troika of Iran, Russia, and Iraq on “intelligence-sharing” vis-a-vis the ISIS terrorist took shape last month. That agreement and the subsequent Russian and Iranian military moves in Syria have somewhat rattled Washington and its regional allies, whose proxies in Syria now face the formidable weight of the Russian military superpower bearing down on them with the help of assortment of cruise missiles and aerial bombardments.

More than two weeks after the onset of Russia’s military campaign in Syria, it is becoming increasingly obvious that instead of triggering a “WWII-style” alliance against terrorism, as hoped for by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in his recent UN speech, a new cold war featuring opposing camps clamoring for zones of influence in the fragmented Arab country is a more likely possibility.

Indeed, this much can be garnered from the stern warning to Russia by the US Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter, who has lambasted the Russian airstrikes in Syria as a “misguided strategy” that will “inflame and prolong” the civil war there, vowing that the US would take “all necessary steps” to counter Moscow. US has stepped up the delivery of arms to the Syrian rebels and its key regional allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia have strongly denounced Russia’s moves in Syria, which are widely interpreted in terms of bolstering the embattled government of Bashar al-Assad, whose forces are now on the offensive to regain lost territories for the first time in months, with much help by Iran’s revolutionary guards and Lebanon’s Hizbollah fighters.

From Tehran’s vantage, however, the political solution in Syria requires a substantial empowerment of Damascus and the de-fanging of the armed opposition, which has made impressive gains throughout 2015. The latter’s ‘reversal of fortunes’ due to the combined air and ground operations involving Russian, Iranian, Iraqi, and Lebanese forces is now an imminent and distinct “game-changer” possibility that, in turn, raises the importance of West’s bid to reach out to Tehran.

With both Syria and Lebanon giving “strategic depth” to Iran, Tehran is now poised to commit ground forces to assist the Syrian government, no matter what the costs, which can be quite exorbitant in light of the recent death of several top military commanders in the Syrian theater. These losses have brought to home in Iran the sad realization that they country is at war with the Iranophobic Sunni Jihadists, who have a crusade mentality vis-a-vis the Shiites led by Iran.
Cognizant of President Obama’s UN speech, where he raised the possibility of cooperation with Iran on Syria, Iran’s officials are still hopeful that their Syria diplomacy reflected in a 4-point peace plan that calls for a government of national unity in Syria and the return of Syrian refugees following a cease-fire can still gain traction with the West despite the changing military dynamic in Syria wrought by the Russian intervention.

On the whole, Iran’s approach is one of a ‘non-zero-sum’ game in Syria, that is, one that does not entail relying on one power, namely Russia, to the complete exclusion of other powers.

This is precisely why the Munich Security Conference in Tehran is important to showcase Iran’s commitment and active pursuit of a viable political solution on Syria that embraces regional cooperation and input. There is, after all, the danger of a Syrian quagmire that could last several more years and drain the resources of both Iran and Russia, whose other common denominator is that both are slapped with Western sanctions.

According to some Tehran pundits, Iran and Iraq have formed a “coalition” with Russia against terrorism in Syria, which is somewhat different from, and less secure, than an outright alliance. Post-revolutionary Iran has been a steadfast defender of ‘neither west, nor east’ foreign policy orientation, which is precisely why the current bandwagoining with Russia in Syria is dictated by the realistic contingencies of the Syrian war. The Munich Security Conference is, however, an important step to harmonize Iran’s and Europe’s views on Syria, as a sine qua non for a regional and international new initiative to bring about a peaceful Syria.

Who thought this up – Giving a  private corporation (CNN) control of a presidential debate? In the most recent Democratic presidential debate, CNN controlled which candidates were invited, who asked what questions, and the location, Las Vegas – the glittering, gambling center of America. This is a mirror image of the control Fox News exercised during their Republican candidates’ circus. Corporatism aside, the debate with Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley, Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee was not a debate. With few exceptions – most notably Hillary Clinton going after Bernie Sanders on gun control, about which she is reborn – the stage was the setting for a series of interview questions to each candidate by Anderson Cooper and his colleagues.

Granted, the quality of the questions was higher than has been the case with other debate spectacles in recent years. Yet CNN’s self-censorship – in part reflected in the content of the questions and the favored positioning given to Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders – was not obscured.

For example, our country has been plagued by a corporate crime wave from Wall Street to Houston. These crimes are regular occurrences, often with recidivist corporations such as giant oil, drug, auto, banking, munitions producers, and mining companies corrupting our politics. Such chronic violations are reported more often than they are properly prosecuted.

Corporate crimes affect American as workers, consumers, taxpayers, and community residents. Unfortunately, corporate criminal law is woefully weak, prosecutions are minor, and enforcement budgets are scandalously tiny. Moreover, corporate lobbyists ensure that corporate privileges and immunities are preserved and expanded in corporate-occupied Washington, D.C.

Somehow, in presidential debate after presidential debate “corporate crime and punishment” or “law and order for corporations” almost never get mentioned either by questioner or candidate. Bernie Sanders – break this taboo in the next five scheduled Democratic debates.

Another perennial omission is the question of how the candidates plan to give more power to the people, since all of them are saying that Washington isn’t working. I have always thought that this is the crucial question voters should ask every candidate for public office. Imagine asking a candidate:: “How are you specifically going to make ‘we the people’ a political reality, and how are you going to give more voice and power to people like me over elected representatives like you?” Watch politicians squirm over this basic inquiry.

The most remarkable part of the Democrats’ “debate” was how Hillary Clinton got away with her assertions and then got rewarded – though not in the subsequent polls, but by the pundits and malleable critics like the Washington Post’s usually cynical Dana Milbank who fell very hard for the Clintonian blarney.

Well-prepared and battle-tested in many political debates, Hillary knows how to impress conventional political reporters, while limiting their follow-up questions. She started with her latest political transformation early on. “I don’t take a backseat to anyone when it comes to progressive commitment….I’m a progressive.”

And the moon is made of blue cheese. Hillary Clinton, a progressive? She is the arch Wall Street corporatist, who hobnobs with criminal firms like Goldman Sachs for $250,000 a speech, and goes around the country telling closed-door business conventions what they want to hear for $5,000 a minute!

As a senator, she did not challenge the large banks and insurance companies whose avarice, willful deceptions, and thefts set the stage for the economy’s collapse in 2008-2009. In fact she supported Bill Clinton’s deregulation of Wall Street with its resulting painful consequences for single mothers and children who suffered the most from the deep recession.

A progressive would not have waited year after year, while receiving the entreaties of women’s and children’s assistance groups to endorse a modest minimum wage to $10.10 per hour over three years by her own Democratic Party in Congress. She finally took the plunge and endorsed it in April 2014, during a speech to the United Methodist Women in Boston. If the Democratic lovefest were a real debate, Bernie Sanders, who voiced domestic progressive positions all evening long, would have intervened and sent her packing. What  everlasting hubris do the Clintons exude! (See Peter Schweizer’s new book, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped make Bill and Hillary Rich. Harper Collins, 2015)

As an embedded militarist, during her tenure as Senator and Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton never saw a boondoggle, obsolete weapons system, or boomeranging war she didn’t like. She delivered belligerent speeches against China, and scared Secretary of Defense Robert Gates by overruling his opposition through her White House contracts to overthrow the Libyan dictator. This illegal war opened up the savage chaos, bloodshed, and havoc in Libya that continued to spread into huge areas of central Africa.

Hillary’s war didn’t seem to interest anyone on stage except former Senator and Governor Lincoln Chafee (D-RI) – an anti-war stalwart – who was promptly marginalized despite making much sense in his brief declarations.

Senator Bernie Sanders missed opportunities to highlight Hillary Clinton’s true corporatist and militarist identity. Most unfortunately, she placed him on the defensive with the socialist/capitalist questioning. Next time, Bernie Sanders should tell the millions of voters watching the “debates” that local socialism is as American as apple pie, going back to the 18^th Century, by mentioning post offices, public highways, public drinking water systems, public libraries, public schools, public universities, and public electric companies as examples.

He then could add that global corporations are destroying competitive capitalism with their corporate state or crony capitalism, despised by both conservatives and progressives.

There was one question – “which enemy are you most proud of?” – that Hillary Clinton did not anticipate and had about a minute to ponder. Her answer: “Well in addition to the NRA, the health insurance companies, the drug companies, the Iranians.” Iranians? An entire people, her enemy? Is this what her self-touted, foreign affairs experience has taught her?

For more information on what debates could be, visit www.opendebates.org.

After years of both direct and indirect remarks on the subject, German Cardinal Reinhard Marx issued his most direct statement yet in favor of offering Communion to the divorced-and-remarried.

In an Oct. 14 address to his fellow bishops from around the world, gathered at the Synod in Rome, he said that “we should seriously consider the possibility – based on each individual case and not in a generalizing way – to admit civilly divorced and remarried believers to the sacrament of Penance and Holy Communion.”

This should be permitted, he continued, “when the shared life in the canonically valid marriage definitively has failed and the marriage cannot be annulled, the liabilities from this marriage have been resolved, the fault for breaking up the marital lifebond was regretted and the sincere will exists to live the second civil marriage in faith and to educate children in the Faith.”

Cardinal Marx’s statement follows years of increased calls from several of the German bishops for a change in the Church’s rules.

The Catholic Church acknowledges that marriage is indissoluble – that is, ended only by death, particularly in marriages between baptized persons, which are sacramental. The Church allows couples to seek an annulment in cases where they do not believe that a true marriage ever existed to begin with, for various reasons including immaturity, psychological illness and deception. However, if a sacramental marriage does exist, it cannot be broken by civil divorce.

Therefore, if a divorced person enters a new civil marriage – unless the Church has declared the nullity of their first union – they are in an adulterous union with their new partner, since they are still sacramentally bound to their original spouse. As a result, they may not receive sacramental Communion, as adultery is a grave sin.

Proposals to allow Communion for the divorced-and-remarried have surfaced numerous times in recent Church history. On at least four separate occasions in the last 50 years, Popes have rejected this idea, saying that the Church cannot change its teaching to go against the nature of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.

During his flight last month from Philadelphia back to Rome, Pope Francis told journalists onboard the papal flight that giving Communion to the divorced-and-remarried was an overly simplistic solution to the problem.

The Pope recently announced new procedures to streamline the annulment process, making the process of investigating the nullity of a marriage less timely and costly.

However, Cardinal Marx suggested that the Pope’s actions are not sufficient. Even greater pastoral care from the Church will not prevent divorce, he said and “(t)he new method for determining the nullity of a marriage cannot cover all cases in the right way.”

“Often the breakdown of a marriage is neither a result of human immaturity nor a lack of wanting to be married,” he said.

The cardinal acknowledged the Church’s understanding of why the divorced-and-remarried are unable to receive Communion.

“The reason given for this is that civilly divorced and remarried believers objectively live in continued adultery and thus in contradiction to what is shown symbolically in the Eucharist, the faithfulness of Christ to his Church,” he said.

However, he questioned, “does this response do justice to the situation of those affected? And is this necessary from a theological point of view of the sacrament? Can people who are seen to be in a state of grave sin, really feel that they wholly belong to us?”

Cardinal Marx said that the German bishops in recent months have discussed at length the problem posed by those who have entered into a second civil marriage while still sacramentally bound in their first marriage.

As an example of this discussion, he referenced a “study day” that has come to be known as a “shadow council,” organized together with the Swiss and French bishops’ conference, and which advocated an acceptance of homosexual acts, among other things.

“Even if a resumption of the relationship would be possible – usually it is not – the person finds themselves in an objective moral dilemma from which there is no clear moral-theological way out,” Cardinal Marx said in his address.

“The advice to refrain from sexual acts in the new relationship not only appears unrealistic to many. It is also questionable whether sexual actions can be judged independent of the lived context.”

The cardinal questioned whether sexual acts in the second union “without exception be judged as adultery? Irrespective of an appraisal of the concrete situation?”

He suggested consideration of Communion for the divorced-and-remarried as a solution for the problem.

Numerous bishops have spoken out against this proposal, saying that it violates the clear teaching of the Church and the words of Jesus, who said in Luke 16:18, “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery.”

Nepal is hit by constitution crisis – India is viewed as interfering and China expands its influence.

By Harsh V. Pant*

Nepal has been in turmoil in recent weeks because of the promulgation of a constitution that, according to its critics, discriminates against the Madhesis and the Tharus, who account for 70 percent of the population living in the Terai region bordering India, as well as against the country’s indigenous groups, the Janjatis. These groups, making up nearly half of Nepal’s population, were marginal to the larger constitution-making process, controlled by upper caste elite. The marginalized protest that their political power is reduced with the redrawing of political subdivisions, and the Indian sympathy they enjoy makes their protest part of a greater geopolitical struggle with China, Nepal’s other giant neighbor.

After taking charge last week, the new prime minister of Nepal, Khadga Prasad Oli, had said that normalizing relations with India is a top priority. Yet India is also viewed as a problem, too involved in Nepal’s domestic politics, and China is exploiting Nepalese insecurities vis-à-vis India to serve its own interests. Ongoing disagreements over the constitution will not only mar relations with India, driving the government closer to China, but also challenge Nepal’s transition to a healthy democracy. What could have been a defining moment for Nepal is mired in internal conflict and regional posturing.

The country is still struggling to come to terms with its political evolution. Since 2008 when the king was forced to give up his emergency powers and restore the elected parliament, politics have yet to settle. Fighting between the Maoists and the Nepalese government lasted a decade with an estimated 13,000 lives lost. Fighting ended in 2006 with the signing a peace accord and a framework for moving forward. Immediately following the conflict, there were some promising steps: Legislation was proposed to establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission; an interim constitution was adopted in 2007 with the intent of forming a Constituent Assembly; elections to that assembly were held in 2008, and during that year Nepal became a democratic republic with abolition of the monarchy.

But the peace process has been protracted due to a climate of political instability – the country has had six prime ministers in the last six years. Such turmoil severely limits the country’s recovery, with the most fundamental example being Nepal’s failure to draft a new constitution. The Constituent Assembly was elected in 2008 with a two-year mandate, but this was extended four times as the parties could not agree on the country’s federal structure. The new constitution is a step forward, but once again fails to provide a lasting solution. More than 40 have been killed in protests in the country since August when the draft constitution was made public.

Nepal can ill-afford this crisis especially after April’s devastating earthquake which caused an estimated $10 billion of damage in the $19.6 billion economy and from which the country has yet to fully recover. As of May, China’s post-earthquake aid was nearly double that from India.

Though a number of countries including China welcomed the new constitution after years of impasse, India’s reaction was terse, pointing out “that the situation in several parts of the country bordering India continues to be violent …We urge that issues on which there are differences should be resolved through dialogue in an atmosphere free from violence and intimidation, and institutionalized in a manner that would enable broad-based ownership and acceptance.”

India had raised concerns over Nepal’s constitution through back channels to avoid being accused of interfering with the process. There was a sense that Nepalese parties ignored the concerns, along with a suggestion to delay promulgation for a few days in view of protests. India conveyed a list of seven amendments to make the constitution amenable for alienated groups living mostly in the Terai region bordering India. The Nepalese government argued that “Nepal’s constitution is better than the Indian constitution” and “the most progressive in South Asia.” Communist leaders in Nepal have taken a strong anti-India line underlining that the new constitution’s promulgation is a “matter of conscience and self-respect” for the Nepalese people and “any act from anywhere that amounts to undermining our sovereignty is not acceptable to the Nepalese.”

Indo-Nepal relations have taken a nosedive with Kathmandu blaming India for growing fuel shortages, implying that India had imposed an informal blockade by not allowing fuel trucks to cross the border into Nepal. New Delhi blamed this disruption on the mass protests. Nepal imports almost all its oil from India, and road links to China through the Himalayas have been blocked since the April earthquake. As tensions with India mounted, China reopened its border with Nepal in Tibet. The disruptions underscore the Himalayan kingdom’s profound economic vulnerability, further inflaming anti-India passions. China is likely to be a beneficiary of this turmoil in India’s periphery.

Historically, Nepal has had close ties with India. The political uncertainty in Nepal has fueled anti-Indian sentiments, allowing China to enlarge its presence and even offer financial assistance for drafting the constitution. China overtook India as Nepal’s biggest foreign investor in 2013 with its funding of a $1.6 billion hydropower project – one of country’s biggest outside investments.

Against this backdrop, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made Nepal a priority. He visited in August 2014 and also pledged $1 billion for reconstruction after the earthquake. It was the first bilateral visit to Nepal by an Indian prime minister in 17 years. Nepalese polity, cutting across party lines, had welcomed the assumption of power by Modi, with most expressing hope that Nepal would be a beneficiary of his developmental agenda.

The Nepalese parliament invited Modi for an address, the first by a foreign head of state to that body since 1990, and the Nepalese gave him a rousing welcome. Modi’s speech was a graceful reflection on the trials and turbulence that have shaped Indo-Nepalese ties in recent years with a promise of a change of course.

Modi also concluded three memoranda of understanding, including one on the 5600-MW Pancheshwar project, a bi-national hydropower project to be developed in Mahakali River bordering Nepal and India. Most significantly, he promised prompt implementation of Indian projects in Nepal, a cause of needless irritation in this bilateral relationship and viewed as symptomatic of India’s lack of seriousness by most Nepalese. India also promised review of the 1950 Treaty of Peace and Friendship within two years on the basis of recommendations from a group of eminent representatives from both countries.

The Modi government had an opportunity to reshape the contours of New Delhi’s relations with Kathmandu at a time when India seems to be losing ground in Nepal to China. The Himalayan kingdom faces a crisis and blames India for pulling strings from behind the scenes. China has long been suspicious of the Madhesis’ sociocultural and economic ties with India as the region has historically been part of India’s larger Mithila region.

New Delhi could have better handled this relationship, but ultimately the Nepalese polity must pursue its own resolution. Otherwise, anger and mistrust between the entrenched elites in the valley and marginalized groups will only grow, challenging governance over the long-term. It is crucial for the Nepalese polity to ensure that those who feel left out of the constitution-making process to develop a sense of ownership in the new document. Anti-India sentiment, understandable though it may be, will not resolve the underlying tensions. Nepal must confront those demons on its own, and India should leave its neighbor alone as it works out its own domestic equation.

*Harsh V. Pant is professor of international relations at King’s College London and the author of India’s Afghan Muddle (HarperCollins).

Myanmar-China relations, strained by The “Myitsone Event”, have avoided the worst situation. However only safe and sustainable Chinese investments will bring benefits and restore mutual confidence.

By Lu Guangsheng*

On September 20 2011, Myanmar’s president Thein Sein “abruptly” announced the temporary suspension of the Myitsone Dam Project (hereinafter referred as the “Myitsone Event”) during his tenure. The Myitsone Dam Project entailed a total investment plan of US$3.6 billion, the biggest Chinese investment in Myanmar to date. The suspension of the project can be regarded as a landmark event for causing the Chinese government and the public to be “highly concerned” and seriously undermining Chinese investment and even bilateral relations.

The controversial Myitsone Event is still not settled today and has become a “thorn” in Sino-Myanmar relations. On 8 November 2015, Myanmar will hold a new general election which is likely to further disrupt Chinese investment and even worsen Sino-Myanmar relations. During this period, it is necessary to review the Myitsone Event and assess present and future bilateral ties.

No solution in the short term

Over the past few years, the Myitsone Event had featured at all levels of bilateral talks between China and Myanmar, involving the president, president’s special envoy and other officials. Restarting the Myitsone Dam Project is China’s intent, but Myanmar avoids the issue all the time, and as a result, there has been no substantive progress.

On 21 May 2015, the first meeting of the Sino-Myanmar electric power cooperation committee working group was held in Beijing to discuss solutions for the Myitsone Dam Project. However, in the face of the coming election, the Myanmar government refuses to present a clear statement. This makes it hard for both sides to arrive at a solution in the short term.

Although the hydropower plant project did not resume operations, the two countries have already dealt with the Myitsone Event and did not allow it to strain bilateral relations. In China, the general public opinion is that China has been “slapped” by Myanmar: despite massive Chinese support during the junta period from 1988 to 2010, Myanmar has turned its back on China by treating Chinese projects badly. Since its 2010 democratic reform, Myanmar is now in an all-out effort to appease its general public and please the West. Under these conditions, China must make a strong response to safeguard other projects, especially the Sino-Myanmar Oil and Gas Pipeline Project.

On the other hand, some Burmese organisations and individuals regard the Myitsone Event as “a landmark achievement” of Myanmar’s democratic transition. They claim that they “never make concession to the powerful northern neighbour”. In the face of pressure from China, some Burmese call for a national donation to pay for the loss of China’s state-owned enterprise, China Power Investment Corporation (CPI). Besides, they protest against Chinese investment by means of mass demonstrations and bad publicity.

Solving the problem

Fortunately, China and Myanmar are trying to resolve the problem. Many Burmese leaders, including President Thein Sein and Aung San Suu Kyi, claimed that Myanmar always welcome Chinese investment; that China is Myanmar’s important neighbour and partner; and that Myanmar has no intention to alienate or even oppose China.

More importantly, China is increasingly aware of the inevitability of the Myitsone Event and other related events amid Myanmar’s transition to democracy. A normal relationship will replace the “special relationship” between the two countries. Based on this understanding, the two sides should collaborate and rationally discuss the solutions for some disputes. From this perspective, the two countries avoided the worst outcome of the Myitsone Event and laid a new and costly but solid foundation for bilateral relations.

Changes in Chinese investment in Myanmar

Chinese investment in Myanmar peaked at US$8.3 billion in 2011 but sharply declined soon after —$4.6 billion in 2012, $0.4 billion in 2013 and US$0.3 billion in 2014. From the data, we can conclude that “Chinese investment in Myanmar sharply declined after the suspension of the Myitsone Dam Project”.

However, this conclusion is just “one side of the coin”. According to investigations and studies over the years, Chinese investment in Myanmar is changing. Firstly, China is always the number one source of foreign investment for Myanmar. By the end of 2014, Chinese total investment reached $14.67 billion, accounting for 27.7% of Myanmar’s total amount of foreign capital. China is still Myanmar’s largest trading partner and investor.

Secondly, there are some new changes in Chinese investment in Myanmar. Unlike the wait-and-see strategy adopted by state-owned enterprises, some Chinese private enterprises, small and medium-sized enterprises, remained active in the Myanmar market in recent years. Although some Chinese investors registered their companies in Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and then invested in Myanmar, these statistics are excluded from the total of Chinese investment in Myanmar. This shows that statistics on Chinese investment in Myanmar is undervalued.

Thirdly, some Chinese investors have learnt from experience and adopted some positive measures to improve. For example, they shifted their focus from resources and energy to industries endorsed by the Myanmar government such as manufacturing, infrastructure, communication, hospitality, financial services, and other industries. Other measures include improving project transparency and environmental protection standards, actively carrying out corporate social responsibility, upgrading local management expertise, attracting local workers and improving work standards, etc.

Obviously, to a certain extent, these positive phenomena can be attributed to lessons learnt from the Myitsone Event. Ensuring safe and sustainable development of Chinese investment in Myanmar will bring benefits and restore confidence in Sino-Myanmar relations.

*Lu Guangsheng is professor at Yunnan University and currently a Visiting Senior Fellow with the China Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Eritrea’s national team has for all practical purposes defected after 10 of its players this week refused to return home following a World Cup qualifier in Botswana.

The defection and effective demise of the squad underscored the failure of autocratic rule in Eritrea already highlighted by the large contingent of Eritreans among the hundreds of thousands of refugees washing ashore in Europe.

It also threw a spotlight on differing degrees of repression in failed autocracies and the way people deal with it. The defecting Eritrean players clearly felt they could afford to seek asylum without repercussions for family members left behind, a luxury Syrian players, for example, do not enjoy.

In seeking asylum in Botswana, the players joined a long list of athletes who have left Eritrea against the backdrop of United Nations assertions that government policies amount to slavery and crimes against humanity and that torture was widespread.

The players reinforced the political statement embedded in their defection by appointing the exile Eritrean Movement for Democracy and Human Rights (EMDHR) as their spokesperson.

Eritrean soccer like Syrian football has been leaking players, who are among the privileged few allowed to travel abroad, for years. As a result, the Eritrean team has had to rebuild from scratch several times.

Rebuilding the team is facilitated by the fact that Eritreans are enlisted for indefinite periods of time into national service. Eritrea has denied assertions in a 484-page UN report that it subjects its citizens to indefinite national service or kills people trying to flee the country.

While the Eritreans have often defected in groups, Syrians have either left their country individually without turning their escape into a media event to protect relatives left behind or in the cases of those players with dual nationality who lived abroad before the eruption of the civil war in 2011 quietly refused to play for what they saw as the team of President Bashar al-Assad rather than that of a nation that only still exists on paper.

The Eritrean defections are a blow to the government’s prestige in a country that according to a 2009 US embassy cable disclosed by Wikileaks is “mad about soccer.” The cable noted that “senior government and party officials are avid fans of the British Premier League and sometimes leave official functions early to catch key matches.”

Twelve members of the national soccer team disappeared in Kenya in 2009 during a regional tournament. Another 13 players sought asylum in Tanzania in 2011. A year later, the reconstituted 17-member national team defected en masse together with their doctor while in Uganda. Four other Eritrean athletes requested political asylum in Britain after the 2012 London Olympics.

EMDHR spokesman Dick Bayford, a Botswanan human rights lawyer, told reporters that the most recent defecting players were still doing national service and risked being charged with desertion which is punishable by death if they were forced to return to Eritrea.

Pro-government media denied Mr. Bayford’s statement and asserted that the Eritrean team dispatched to Botswana had 34 members, 24 of which had returned to Eritrea.

Writing in Tesfanews, Mike Seium charged that EMDHR “seem(s) to think that because 10 players defected the country is in uproar and we have serious problems. However, they don’t know Eritrea…The nucleus of the team is still there along with many other players. To those that defected, the sad part of it is that you are using the Eritrean national team to send a political agenda that allows failed organizations like the EMDHR to gain propaganda points.”

While Eritrea ranks among the world’s most repressive nations, Syria hosts one of the world’s most vicious regimes, which explains why Syrian players when they choose to defect do so quietly.

As a result, Syria has largely been able despite multiple defections to keep its national team intact. Surprisingly, the team is performing well on the pitch and despite the mayhem and bloodshed closer to reaching the 2018 World Cup finals than it ever has been.

The stories of individual players nevertheless reflect Syria’s crisis. Mosab Balhous, the Syrian team’s goalkeeper, was arrested in 2011 on charges of supporting opposition movements and sheltering rebel fighters, and vanished for a year before suddenly re-joining the squad in 2012. The national youth team’s folk-singing goalkeeper Abdel Basset Al-Saroot became a leader of the uprising in Homs before initially joining the Islamic State (IS), which he left last year to join Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra.

Swedish-Assyrian international Louay Chanko opted out of the Syrian team because of what he called “corruption.” Striker Firas al-Khatib, who plays for Kuwait’s Al-Arabi SC, left the national team in 2012 because he did not want to represent the Assad government. The departure for Germany of youth team captain Mohammad Jaddoua prompted the Syrian Football Association (SFA) to ban players from traveling abroad except for on official business.

Other players have joined a team in Lebanon fielded by the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army that hopes to one day be Syria’s national team. It sports green jerseys, the colour of the anti-Assad revolt as opposed to the national squad’s red. The team’s coach, Walid al-Muhaidi, says he escaped Syria in 2013 together with some 100 athletes.

Syrian national team captain Abdulrazak Al Husein told The Guardian in advance of a qualifying match earlier this month against Japan said his squad represented “all aspects of Syria. Whether you are a Christian or a Muslim or any sector of Islam we’re all one family, we’re playing for one team, one country,”

His professed optimism put a brave face on a bad situation. “At the end of the day, we’re playing for the country, hoping it will get back to the way it was. The best thing we can do is unite the people of Syria,” he said.

Mr. Al-Hussein’s optimism is all the more remarkable given that unlike Eritrea which toils under repression but is not threatened by disintegration of its nation state, restoring Syria to its pre-2011 colonial borders is at best a distant dream.

Few believe that Syria can be restored as a nation state within its pre-conflict borders. Russian intervention is widely seen as an effort to ensure that Mr. Assad controls a swath of land stretching from Damascus to Latakia on the Mediterranean coast that could constitute a rump state built around his Alawite minority — one of several entities that could emerge from the ruins of Syria.

Using options, they have which are far less available to their Syrian counterparts, Eritrean players have with their repeated mass defections been doing what FIFA and other international sports associations should have long done: penalize regimes that blatantly violate human rights and use soccer to distract international attention and polish their badly tarnished images.

India will host the third India-Africa Forum Summit (IAFS) in Delhi from 26-29 October. This represents an ambitious effort by the new government to boost relations with Africa. There are some novel features of this Summit and challenges to face in the future in meeting the high expectations that will undoubtedly be generated.

The first edition of the IAFS was held in Delhi in April 2008, and the second was held in Addis Ababa in May 2011. The participation at these summits was organized through the African Union (AU), which invited a selected list of African states. 12 African countries participated in the IAFS-1, while at IAFS-2, 15 countries participated. The model was for India to cooperate with African states trough the AU, since India did not have resident missions in many African states.

The substantive decisions at IAFS-1 and IAFS-2 do indeed reflect the great potential and desire of the top leaders on both sides to widen and deepen cooperation for mutual benefit. IAFS-1 adopted the Delhi Declaration, mostly on the global situation, and the Africa-India Framework for Cooperation. Under the latter instrument, India pledged to increase the volume of Lines of Credit for Africa from $ 2.15 billion to $5.4 billion over the next five years. The framework document expresses the desire to strengthen cooperation in the following sectors – Agriculture, Trade Industry and Investment, Small and Medium Enterprises, Finance, Regional Integration, Peace and Security, Civil Society and Governance, Science and Technology, Information and Communications Technology, Education, Health, Water and Sanitation, Culture and Sports, Poverty Eradication, Tourism, Infrastructure Energy and Environment, and media and Communication.

The Framework adopted at IAFS-1 is well drafted, comprehensive and ambitious, and it was to be followed up by officials on both sides to develop and implement specific and concrete cooperation activities. A Ministerial meeting was held in Delhi in March 2010, which adopted a Plan of Action and a road map for the Second Summit. Among the specific projects agreed upon to be financed by credits from India were: (a) Setting up of Human Settlement Institutes in 5 African countries. (b) Establishment of Vocational Training Institutes in 10 African countries. (c) Indian assistance for a Pan-African Stock Exchange (d) a $ 300 m credit line would be made available for financing an infrastructure project under regional integration. (e) Strengthening capacity of the African Court on Human and People’s Rights.

IAFS-2 adopted a 32 paragraph Addis Ababa Declaration largely on global issues, and an Africa-India Framework for Enhanced Cooperation. The word “Enhanced” was meant to dispel any impression that this was a routine affair. A few new initiatives were included. India offered $ 5 billion for the next three years under lines of credit and an additional $ 700 million to establish new institutions and training programmes in consultation with the African Union and its institutions. As a follow-up to the successful Pan-African E-Network Project, it was proposed that an India-Africa Virtual University would be established. In implementation of recommendations emanating from the two summits, several conferences and workshops have been organized. Scholarships and fellowships in India increased substantially, while a number of capacity building institutions were set up in Africa. Approval rates of Lines of Credit doubled to over $ 1 billion per year, while India Africa trade doubled from $ 34 billion in 2008 to $ 68 billion in 2011.

Despite these results the limitations of the India-AU model became apparent. Cooperation between African states and India slowed down because of the extra layer of the AU in between. This was manifest by the time preparations for IAFS-3 were underway in 2014. IAFS-3 had to be postponed due to numerous reasons. For IAFS-3 a different approach was followed, of reaching out and connecting directly with all 54 African states, despite the limitations of the Indian diplomatic network. This approach has resulted in a much bigger IAFS-3, with over 50 countries sending delegations. The size of the meetings poses formidable logistics challenges as well as producing satisfactory outcome documents.

Other major countries have also had similar partnership mechanisms with Africa. China has held five meetings of the Forum on China Africa Cooperation at Ministerial level since 2000, the next would be held in December 2015 in South Africa. The US has held a meeting of the US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington in August 2014. Japan has decided to hold the Japan-Africa Summit (TICAD) every three years, with the next to be held in Africa in 2016. China ensured attendance of 48 countries (including 40 leaders) in 2006, the US hosted 50 countries (including 47 leaders) in 2014 and Japan had 49 countries (including 37 leaders) in 2013.

The IAFS-3 is set to build upon the foundations of the previous two Summits and will certainly discuss global issues such as UN reform, terrorism, migration, internal conflicts, and climate change, in addition to further developing cooperation initiatives. New areas such as renewable energy are promising. The high expectations generated by the Summit will need to be fulfilled. Bilateral meetings will add much value to the Summit.

The Government of India must ensure that strong mechanisms are put in place for implementing agreed activities, and make the necessary reforms in administrative and financial processes for this. Once a project document has been approved at a certain funding level, it should not be necessary to go to the Ministry of Finance for approving expenditures on each project activity. This slows down project implementation.

India’s diplomatic network in Africa is also relatively small. India has diplomatic missions in 29 African states. In comparison, China has missions in 50 countries, including Libya. Japan has missions in 33 countries. The US has missions in 50 countries. To implement an ambitious programme of cooperation such as that envisaged by IAFS, it would be necessary to strengthen India’s diplomatic network, by increasing the number of countries with resident missions, and also deploying sufficient human resources at New Delhi and in the Missions.

The forthcoming IAFS-3 holds out the promise of stepping up India’s engagement with Africa, a continent which has high potential for development and contributing to prosperity of its peoples.

The author is a former Ambassador of India who has served in Africa

This week, The Intercept published a series of articles on U.S. drone warfare, “The Drone Papers” — a title clearly intended to evoke memories of “The Pentagon Papers,” leaked by Daniel Ellsberg in 1971.

Micah Zenko, a senior fellow with the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations, writes:

Having read probably every major reported story about U.S. counterterrorism operations for the past dozen years, I am consistently disappointed that journalists leave out essential context, history, or directly relevant previous reporting by other journalists. Often, what is promoted as an “exclusive” or “breaking” story can only be described this way by omission. Whether that omission is done unconsciously, due to a lack of knowledge of others’ work, or mandated by space constraints for print editions, it misleads readers about the uniqueness of the story reported. Thankfully, the Intercept has taken the time to put its stories into context and explicitly name and link to the work of other journalists and even academics. This is a model that all national security journalists should emulate.

Nevertheless, Zenko reaches this conclusion:

as impressive and important as “The Drone Papers” are, I am sadly certain that this balanced reporting and its eye-opening disclosures will not compel any new concerns or investigations in Washington. Nor should we ever expect them under this president and this Congress.

For researchers and human rights activists, reporting of this kind is bound to be welcomed, yet it’s debatable whether it contains any significant eye-opening disclosures. Indeed, I have my doubts about whether any major piece of investigative journalism can be based on Powerpoint presentations.

Only 15 copies of the Pentagon Papers were officially made. How many analysts, contractors, and other officials have had access to the so-called Drone Papers? If we knew that, we would probably be able to infer more about the position of the source and likewise assess whether the documents contain any closely guarded secrets.

Even though the Obama administration has been seriously lacking in transparency when it comes to the mechanics and legal rationales it has applied during a period in which it has succeeded in normalizing assassination, the fact that most Americans support drone warfare does not seem to be the result of a lack of information.

The American public is famously ignorant — especially when it comes to foreign affairs — yet I don’t believe that those Americans who support drone strikes do so because they don’t know enough about how the government decides who can justifiably be assassinated.

If the target is a man with a dark skin, an Arabic name, he wears a beard and baggy clothing, he has been deemed dangerous enough to be called a terrorist and is located in Pakistan, Yemen, or Somalia, that in many Americans’ eyes is sufficient “due process” to incinerate him with a Hellfire missile.

The bureaucratic process leading up to such a missile strike is a legal and political structure built upon a broad social foundation.

That social foundation is what allowed President Obama to joke about drone strikes and what gave him the confidence to pursue a policy of assassination.

Prudence required the construction of necessary legal protections so that no one in the chain of command might later face prosecution, and yet what must have convinced Obama that he was entitled to claim the authority to sign death warrants was his well-founded belief that he was in alignment with the mood and values of the American public.

The permissive atmosphere that facilitated the implementation and expansion of drone warfare has always hinged on the assumptions that it takes place in parts of the world so forbidding that no American would want to be sent there and that those whose lives get snuffed out would never be welcome on these shores.

These are not political or legal considerations, but rather visceral sentiments about what it means to be an American and how little value is attached to the rest of the world and its inhabitants.

Moreover, drone warfare has been deemed acceptable not only because of who it targets and where it takes place, but also because it embodies the most popular conception of American justice.

The only so-called advanced nation on this planet that still applies the death penalty is one in which justice is primarily conceived in terms of retribution.

The legal process, rather than being seen as the method for administering justice, is just as often viewed as an impediment to the application of justice. From this perspective, drone warfare far from undermining the rule of law has instead, in the eyes of many Americans, made it more efficient.

Those American observers who choose to characterize drone warfare as an expression of the national security state gone wild, are also conveniently ignoring the culpability of fellow Americans. Blame the government and then everyone else remains innocent.

In reality, Obama was only able to sign off on drone strikes because he was getting a quiet nod from most Americans.

Congress is heading into another big brawl over the federal budget deficit, the national debt, and the debt ceiling.

Republicans are already talking about holding Social Security and Medicare “hostage” during negotiations—hell-bent on getting cuts in exchange for a debt limit hike.

Days ago, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew asked whether our nation would “muster the political will to avoid the self-inflicted wounds that come from a political stalemate.”

It’s a fair question. And there’s only one economically sound answer: Congress must raise the debt ceiling, end the sequester, put more people to work, and increase our investment in education and infrastructure.

Here are the three reasons why Republican deficit hawks are wrong. (Please watch and share our attached video.)

FIRST: Deficit and debt numbers are meaningless on their own. They have to be viewed as a percent of the national economy.

That ratio is critical. As long as the yearly deficit continues to drop as a percent of the national economy, as it’s been doing for several years now, we can more easily pay what we owe.

SECOND: America needs to run larger deficits when lots of people are unemployed or underemployed – as they still are today, when millions remain too discouraged to look for jobs and millions more are in part-time jobs and need full-time work.

As we’ve known for years – in every economic downturn and in every struggling recovery – more government spending helps create jobs – teachers, fire fighters, police officers, social workers, people to rebuild roads and bridges and parks. And the people in these jobs create far more jobs when they spend their paychecks.

This kind of spending thereby grows the economy – thereby increasing tax revenues and allowing the deficit to shrink in proportion.

Doing the opposite – cutting back spending when a lot of people are still out of work – as Congress has done with the sequester, as much of Europe has done – causes economies to slow or even shrink, which makes the deficit larger in proportion.

This is why austerity economics is a recipe for disaster, as it’s been in Greece. Creditors and institutions worried about Greece’s debt forced it to cut spending, the spending cuts led to a huge economic recession, which reduced tax revenues, and made the debt crisis there worse.

THIRD AND FINALLY: Deficit spending on investments like education and infrastructure is different than other forms of spending, because this spending builds productivity and future economic growth.

It’s like a family borrowing money to send a kid to college or start a business. If the likely return on the investment exceeds the borrowing costs, it should be done.

Keep these three principles in mind and you won’t be fooled by scare tactics of the deficit hawks.

And you’ll understand why we have to raise the debt ceiling, end the sequester, put more people to work, and increase rather than decrease spending on vital public investments like education and infrastructure.

The sea ice cover of the Southern Ocean reached its yearly maximum extent on Oct. 6. At 7.27 million square miles (18.83 million square kilometers), the new maximum extent falls roughly in the middle of the record of Antarctic maximum extents compiled during the 37 years of satellite measurements – this year’s maximum extent is both the 22nd lowest and the 16th highest.

More remarkably, this year’s maximum is quite a bit smaller than the previous three years, which correspond to the three highest maximum extents in the satellite era, and is also the lowest since 2008.

The growth of Antarctic sea ice was erratic this year: sea ice was at much higher than normal levels throughout much of the first half of 2015 until, in mid-July, it flattened out and even went below normal levels in mid-August. The sea ice cover recovered partially in September, but still this year’s maximum extent is 513,00 square miles (1.33 million square kilometers) below the record maximum extent, which was set in 2014. Scientists believe this year’s strong El Niño event, a natural phenomenon that warms the surface waters of the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, had an impact on the behavior of the sea ice cover around Antarctica. El Niño causes higher sea level pressure, warmer air temperature and warmer sea surface temperature in the Amundsen, Bellingshausen and Weddell seas in west Antarctica that affect the sea ice distribution.

“After three record high extent years, this year marks a return toward normalcy for Antarctic sea ice,” said Walt Meier, a sea ice scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “There may be more high years in the future because of the large year-to-year variation in Antarctic extent, but such extremes are not near as substantial as in the Arctic, where the declining trend towards a new normal is continuing.”

This year’s maximum extent occurred fairly late: the mean date of the Antarctic maximum is Sept. 23 for 1981-2010.

The chief executive officers of 10 of the world’s largest oil and gas companies – which together provide almost a fifth of all oil and gas production and supply nearly 10% of the world’s energy – on Friday declared their collective support for an effective climate change agreement to be reached at next month’s 21st session of the United Nations (UN) Conference of Parties to the UN Framework on Climate Change (COP21).

In their milestone declaration, the CEOs of the 10 companies that currently make up the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) – BG Group, BP, Eni, Pemex, Reliance Industries, Repsol, Saudi Aramco, Shell, Statoil and Total – confirmed that they­ recognise the general ambition to limit global average temperature rise to 2 degrees centigrade and that the existing trend of the world’s net global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is not consistent with this ambition.

The OGCI member companies have taken significant actions to reduce their GHG footprint, with combined GHG emissions from their operations reducing by around 20% over the past 10 years.

In their declaration the 10 CEOs said:

“Our shared ambition is for a 2°C future. It is a challenge for the whole of society. We are committed to playing our part. Over the coming years we will collectively strengthen our actions and investments to contribute to reducing the GHG intensity of the global energy mix. Our companies will collaborate in a number of areas, with the aim of going beyond the sum of our individual efforts.”

(Helge Lund, BG Group; Bob Dudley, BP; Claudio Descalzi, Eni; Emilio Lozoya, Pemex; Mukesh Ambani, Reliance Industries; Josu Jon Imaz, Repsol; Ben van Beurden, Royal Dutch Shell; Amin Nasser, Saudi Aramco; Eldar Sætre, Statoil; and Patrick Pouyanné, Total.)

The OGCI also today launched its collaborative report – ‘More energy, lower emissions’ – highlighting practical actions taken by member companies to improve GHG emissions management and work towards improving climate change impacts in the longer term. These actions include significant investments in natural gas, carbon capture and storage, and renewable energy, as well as low-GHG research and development.

Together the declaration and report set out key areas where the OGCI companies will focus their collaboration, including:

• Efficiency: optimising efficiency of their own operations; improving the end-use efficiency of their fuels and other products; and working with manufacturers and consumers to improve the efficiency of road vehicles.
• Natural gas: contributing to increasing the share of gas in the global energy mix, ensuring it results in significantly lower lifecycle emissions than other fossil fuels for power generation; eliminating ‘routine’ flaring and reducing methane emissions from their operations.
• Long-term solutions: investing in R&D and innovation to reduce GHG emissions; participating in partnerships to progress carbon capture and storage; contributing to increasing the share of renewables in the global energy mix.
• Energy access: developing projects to provide people with access to energy in partnership with local and national authorities and other stakeholders.
• Partnerships and multi-stakeholder initiatives: seeking opportunities to accelerate climate change solutions by working collectively or individually in industry and other initiatives.

The OGCI is a CEO-led, voluntary, oil and gas industry initiative that aims to catalyze practical action on climate change through best practice sharing and collaboration.

The OGCI was established following discussions held during the January 2014 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting and was officially launched at the September 2014 UN Climate Summit.

The most outrageous statement on foreign policy in the Democratic debate was that Hillary Clinton defended the overthrow of Libyan Muammar Gaddafi by saying that it involved no U.S. ground troops and led to the first democratic election ever in Libya.

She forgot to mention that because of a vacuum of leadership after the dictator was toppled, the country is now experiencing chaos, tribal civil war, and the creation of terrorist enclaves and bases. Not only that, fighters and weapons from Gaddafi’s sizable storehouses are flowing into neighboring countries, destabilizing them too.

Although it is true that Republicans focusing on the Benghazi incident is political and nonsensical, the real issue is Hillary Clinton’s judgment, as Secretary of State, in pushing for such a disastrous military intervention in Libya in the first place. It seems analogous to George W. Bush’s equally catastrophic invasion of Iraq. Oops, Hillary supported that fiasco too!

By Harun Yahya(

Last week, Turkey experienced the worst-ever terrorist attack in its history when two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a gathering organized by peace activists in Ankara. It is no secret that Turkey has been facing terrorism for years but the latest attack and the resultant death toll has surpassed all previous incidents in brutality.

Like the previous terrorist attacks in Diyarbakir and Suruc, identity of the attackers and their backers remains shrouded in mystery. Whatever is currently being reported about the identity of the terrorists and their affiliations are mere speculations or analyses. Columnists and politicians are making guesses in this regard on the basis of their personal political opinions. This situation is only further polarizing the country. Unfortunately, using this perception engineering they have perhaps unknowingly initiated yet another futile conflict.

As a matter of fact, using basic scientific techniques to ascertain the identity of the attackers would be enough to make headway in this case. The nature of this attack, its result, its target and the sphere of influence reveal very comprehensive data regarding who might have carried out this gruesome attack.

Of course while considering this data, we need to assess the history of the country as well. A terror-stricken country would be an experienced country. Consequently, past experiences constitute enlightening clues for a better understanding of the current scenario.

In contrast to many other Muslim countries, Turkey is struggling against communist terror for 40 years instead of radical terror. That is why her experiences are different than those of other countries. Radical terrorists openly take responsibility of their actions. On the other hand, communist terrorists sometimes want to throw people off the scent and lie low. In radical terror, suicide bombers are volunteers hoping to go to Heaven; communist terror on the other hand sometimes places explosives on individuals and these explosives — just like what happened in Ankara attack — are detonated using remote controls.

Although from time to time certain terrorist organizations came to the fore in the history of Turkey, the real fight has always been against the PKK. This communist terrorist organization has always used big cities as the “last resort” throughout its history.

The communist ideology regards cease-fire as a tactic of war not for peace, they first talk of cease-fire and then carry out such bloody acts. These anonymous acts generally target their own supporters, their own sympathizers and those people with whom they are in an ideological unity. The goal here is to stir and provoke Marxist power groups, thus to gather supporters and to lay the blame on the state.

When we closely study the recent Ankara attacks, it clearly appears to be one of the tactics the PKK is notorious for. There are other examples of this that we have witnessed throughout the history. PKK had carried out bombings numerous times at the gatherings of Marxists and then portrayed itself as the victim.

Interestingly enough all those attacks took place following PKK’s promise of a cease-fire. It should not be forgotten that the PKK terror organization has always been a mafia organization that kills its own comrades. Around 17,000 people have been executed internally within the PKK until now. Consequently killing its own people is something the PKK knows very well and systematically practices.

Right now there is a political party in the Turkish political arena that enjoys open support of the PKK. Consequently, PKK thinks that it can achieve its goals by influencing Turkey’s political dynamics. It wants an environment in which the party it supports can make electoral gains in the polls that are scheduled to be held in two weeks. Blaming the state for the heinous terrorist attack is a tactic to make electoral gains. They try to do this sneakily by carrying out a bloody act and then throwing people off scent. Furthermore claiming that those who support them are being killed, they even play the role of a wronged party.

While this sneaky tactic employed by the communist terrorists is out in the open, the polarization that is taking place in our country is causing many to fail to see this plot.

There are a few important measures to take: First, some intellectuals should be prevented from covertly backing the PKK only because of their opposition to the government.

This can only be made possible by eliminating the factors contributing to the polarization of society with the use of a moderate language and inclusively displaying the actual objective of the PKK. Secondly it should be ensured that politicians no longer use this language of polarization. HDP is in a risky situation as a party providing its outright support to the PKK, but the other parties in the Parliament must definitely come to the common grounds and, following the election on Nov. 1, they must rapidly establish a coalition. By doing so, they can make up for the lost time. Yet while doing this, the coalition in question must primarily turn its attention to the PKK. Some deep state policies pursued to drift Turkey into the Syrian war must be ignored and this coalition must not deviate from its objective.

Since 1978 the PKK has been a source of problems for Turkey and currently it has turned into a plague, strong enough to sit at the table with the government. It should be stopped tactfully before it’s too late. If Turkey does not engage in such efforts and be deceived by the PKK’s methods of misleading; if she leaves aside the real peril, opening the door to new scourges by misdiagnosing, this may have grave consequences.

The writer has authored more than 300 books translated into 73 languages on politics, religion and science. He tweets @harun_yahya.

Monday Oct 12. It was Columbus Day in America; a period of massacre of the Arawak Indians at the time of the coming of Christopher Columbus and the Conquistadors. It is also a week of educational genocide in Kelantan, Malaysia. A sad day for both countries. These passages narrate the nature of schools Malaysians have built.

Malaysian prayers went to the Orang Asli (indigenous people’s) children (six girls and one boy, between 7-11 years old) of Pos Tohoi, Gua Musang who perished. Two girls survived eating grass and wild fruits to keep them alive. They were lost for 48 days in the nearby jungle after leaving their residential school, escaping harsh punishment for bathing in the river. May their souls lay in eternal peace, away from this world of educational misery created by those who do not know what education means.

The Malaysian government does not treat the indigenous people well and instead try to force-assimilate them into the Malay-Muslim culture. The plight of East Malaysian Penan tribe of Sarawak is another case study of marginalization and cultural genocide well-known internationally with stories of the peoples of the forest defending their right to exist, in face of the government’s building of mega-projects.

In the history of the United States, the name Christopher Columbus is generally associated by the Native Americans with genocide. The conquistador, whose expeditions to the ‘New World’ were financed by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, yielded not only a passage to ‘America’, (named after the mapmaker Amerigo Vespucci,) but brought more Spaniards to the new-found land and which led to the massacre of thousands of Arawak Indians, as the late American historian Howard Zinn argued.

Columbus should have been educated of the need to respect the cultures of the ‘American natives’ or Orang Asli Amerika, but also learn from them what ‘civilisation’ should mean and what ‘education and cultural action for freedom’ should look like.

The poignant and horrifying story of the death of schoolchildren in Gua Musang, Kelantan of the Orang Asli of Temiar origin is an example of how education, that ought to be a gentle profession has turned genocidal. It also points to the idea of what state schooling means to the indigenous people and how, in the case of the children of the Temiars who perished, what form of mental torture is inflicted upon them, in a state identified as “most Islamic” in the country. Kelantan, where the Pos Toi School in Gua Musang lies, is unofficially named “The Verandah of Mecca.” (Serambi Mekah) by the leaders of the ruling government-cum-Pan-Malayan Islamic Party.

How is this so, and what does it say about the state of educational evolution and crisis of cultural degenerative proportion Malaysia is in? For the world t understand how this hyper-modern society has evolved and how its people are schooled for social reproduction, one must understand the types of schools that have come into being

Seven types of schools

Since independence, and as a legacy of British colonialism of divide and conquer as well as following the mould of Americanism, Malaysia has developed seven types of schools namely,

1) POWER SCHOOLS, i.e. international schools meant for the rich and powerful who will compete and collaborate with children of expatriates and to save children from the children of the poor and of the natives;

2) PRIVATE SCHOOLS, i.e. most often very expensive ‘breakaway schools’ meant to save children from poor teaching, overcrowded classrooms, and to save children of the rich from those of the lower and middle class;

3) PRIVILEGED SCHOOLS, i.e. well-funded boarding schools built to safeguard racial privileges and to instill ketuanan Melayu (the “self-proclaimed sense of superiority of the Malays”) amongst children who did well in their kampong schools to be saved from the schools for the poor, to groom them so that they will become leaders that will protect the rights of this or that race;

4) PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS, i.e. schools that sustain the transmission of this or that culture based on the perceived superiority of this or that language, culture, and religion, so that the children will be saved from being washed away by the tide of cultural change brought by the children of the poor;

5) PUBLIC SCHOOLS, i.e. government schools that sustain the ideology of the ruling regime par excellence and en mass, deploy curriculum that passes down ‘Official Knowledge and Grand Narratives of One Particular Historical, Cultural, Scientific truths’, train the children of the poor to be nationalistic and patriotic unquestionably, and those used as a training ground for children to participate in nation-building as servants and appendages to the state capitalist system so that the children will grow up as defenders of the evolvingly-totalitarian state;

6) ‘PROOF-OF-CONCEPT’ SCHOOLS, i.e. well-funded ‘pulled-out’ government schools to prove that public schools do work as a showcase of innovations and good management, authentic assessment and evaluation, as a way to show that selected schools can be saved from the failing public schools, and that a failing policy can be saved by a successful showcase of ‘smart ways to schooling’;

7) PARIAH SCHOOLS, i.e. schools that beg for money from the government even to fix the roof or a toilet … fit for a punishment haven for children simply because they are born out of the wrong race, class, or caste, and schools for those whose parents did not go to any of the schools above.

Which of the schools do the children of the Temiar tribe of Gua Musang belong to?

Which of those above do Malaysians wish their child to be schooled in?

No Malaysia child left behind?

What then must Malaysians do in this apartheid scheme of schooling and mass-babysitting? How can they stop this conveyor belt of education from moving, to give each child the right to be intelligent in a level playing field? Dare they vote in a government that will correct the imbalances of a class system of social reproduction?

Malaysians have successfully created classes of society through the classification system of schools and through the class ideology we directly or indirectly teach in our classrooms. There are schools for the rich and schools for the poor. Like labeling batteried-chicken eggs, they assign ‘grades’ to their schools.

When schools are failing, they try to create independent schools and profit from more private schools, leaving behind the children of the poor of all races to be recycled in the system of structural mental-ideological violence. They are wasting good talents. Instead of making the slogan ‘brain gain’ a reality, we are making ‘brains go down the drain’.

They have also created the dispossessed youth with passion for death-inviting drag-racing, the Mat and Minah Rempits, the essentially loan-shark artist ‘Alongs’ preying on the financially desperate, and gangsters groomed in the rubber estates and depressed urban areas.

These are the products of an unthinking schooling and reproductions of the post-industrial society. The society has neglected the development of their children’s minds and have created successful failures through the schools they build. Malaysians have appointed educational leaders who perhaps have not set foot in the classroom, let alone in those of the most impoverished areas of our country.

What is our problem with this gentle profession and enterprise called

‘Education’?

What then must Malaysians do? Seems that they are only reading daily about the mega-fiasco of the 1MDB and the fruitless war between the camps of the former leader Mahathir Mohamad and the current one Najib Abdul Razak: about who is stealing how much of the people’s/rakyat’s money, then now and forever.
Essentially Malaysians continue to neglect the debate concerning their children’s future – their great school debate.

The 66th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China witnessed multi-dimensional initiatives on domestic, regional and global levels. These include a war against corruption primarily in mainland China, the revival of the ancient Silk route in the 21st century i.e. One Belt One Road (OBOR), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and a most recent overwhelming contribution to the United Nations’ human and financial capital funds as the global institution celebrated its 70th anniversary. This was President Xi’s first appearance at the United Nations and reflects his overall policy.

China experienced injustice from the world community for more than two decades in the aftermath of the fall of the Nationalist Kuomintang. For those two decades the most populous country in the world was deliberately deprived of its legitimate right to be recognized by the United Nation. This left mainland China with several policy options: surrender, subjugate its rightful claim and denounce the United Nations or pursue eventual recognition with patience and devotion. China opted to pursue the latter and restored its rightful place in the United Nations.

Subsequently China is leading the United Nations in the General Assembly. President Xi Spoke to the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit and offered several commitments and lucrative pledges. These includes $2 billion to achieve post 2015 development goals and $12 billion investment in least developed states, in order to bridge the gap between the policy and execution of development goals. Mr. Xi extended another generous offer by writing off intergovernmental interest free loans to the least developed countries and small island nations, a practical commitment which will help achieve new development goals. Achieving even the limited success of the Millennium Development Goals owes a great deal to Chinese efforts. China set the precedent for the Global South to meet the challenge of poverty.

The United Nations Secretary General Mr. Ban Ki-moon labeled China as an indispensable partner for the United Nations Agenda of world Peace and Development. At the same time, the United Nations is looking for a strong and more determined role that China can play for the empowerment of women and Gender Equality in the world. The conference on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment or, informally, Beijing+20, is co-organized by U.N. Women and China. Additionally, China committed $10 million for United Nations Women. Certainly, historians will favorably view China’s role in the United Nations today and wonder about the partial, unfair and irrational policies toward China in the past.

Traditionally, the United States takes strong stands on Human Rights issues as the basic principle of its foreign policy goals. However, Beijing +20, changed the dynamics and offered Beijing strong credentials to lead the issue at the global forum. Though, the present situation on gender equality and the empowerment of women is not ideal in China, the less active role of the United States created a vacuum that favored China in the United Nations. Mrs. Clinton posted on twitter, ‘Xi hosting a meeting on women’s rights at the UN while persecuting feminists? Shameless.’

It’s nothing more than a prejudicial and political statement. However, President Obama did not personally participate in the meeting. South-South Cooperation seems to be more pragmatic with China’s active participation and leadership. There will be 600 projects in trade, education, healthcare, climate change, poverty reduction, and agriculture along with an international development knowledge center. Aid, trade, knowledge and participation will be shared equally. In the past, aid hijacked trade, technical skills, transfer of knowledge and technology. Mr. Xi promised a $1 billion donation to the United Nations for a “peace and development fund,” which will produce better results for the development of the global south and facilitate the achievement of post development goals. While addressing the United Nations General Assembly President Xi, extended $100 million in aid to the African Union for the establishment of a Quick Response force that can deal with emergencies.

Furthermore, China exceeds the other four powers of the Security Council in terms of its contribution of troops to United Nation’s Peacekeeping missions. Thus, the announcement of an additional 8000 permanent Peacekeeping forces was met with amazement and awe in the United Nations. The United States call for a greater role for China in Global Affairs from the United Nations platform can be considered satisfactory. A gigantic country, with a large population, resources, rising economy and responsible power is ready to take part in global affairs with shared but different responsibilities.

Though he assumed the office of President only in 2012, President Xi’s first entrance in the United Nations and pledges and promises made by him are noteworthy. Initiatives taken by him on the domestic front particularly in curbing corruption and the formation of a national Security Council are steps for rejuvenation of the great nation. However extreme centralization of power and concentration around his office received huge criticism. As stated by Lord Acton ‘Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely’ there are risks and chances of mishandling of issues. On the forging of policy front the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the One Belt One Road; the revival of traditional Silk Route in the 21st century, are challenging as well as promising projects. Yet, execution, implementation and materialization of these steps will be the test case for Chinese leadership. The future narrative of Xi’s rule will be defined by these mega and anticipated projects both domestically and on foreign frontiers. If these gigantic tasks are articulated, managed and executed well, it can be assumed the century will be the Chinese century and China will lead the world.

This article was originally posted in Diplomatic Insight.